Middle Eastern Gulf nation Bahrain is gearing up to take delivery of a first LNG cargo in over five years as a ship-to-ship transfer gets underway.
Seapeak’s 173,400-cbm Seapeak Bahrain (built 2018) is due to receive a cargo in an STS operation off Fujairah this week.
Eikland Energy’s iGIS/LNG shows the Seapeak vessel alongside the 173,400-cbm Minerva Limnos (built 2021) today. The TotalEnergies-chartered Minerva vessel loaded a cargo in the US last month.
The Seapeak vessel is expected to sail the short distance to Bahrain, where it will moor at the existing facility within the Khalifa bin Salman Port facility, in Hidd.
Work will then start on cooling down the equipment, including jetty-based regasification kit, before gas is put into the system.
The Seapeak Bahrain, which previously served as the floating storage unit for the project under its earlier name Bahrain Spirit, is now listed as on charter to Bapco Energies, which operates the Bahrain LNG terminal.
The vessel last shipped a cargo in late 2019, but the facility has sat idle since.
The terminal, which was officially completed in 2020, comprises a floating regasification platform 4 km offshore.
The FSU is stationed on the east side of this with provision for visiting LNG carriers to moor on the west side of the jetty.
The import facility has a regasification capacity of up to 800 mmcf per day.
Gas is transported to an onshore receiving plant via a subsea pipeline where nitrogen is produced and added before it is fed into the grid.
TradeWinds reported last year that the terminal in Bahrain was set to be reactivated.
Initially, operations were due to start in September 2024, but work had not been completed. Bahrain is understood to have been building gas pipelines to its industrial facilities.
The tiny Gulf country has previously signalled its intentions to start LNG imports in 2025 to meet industrial and power generation energy demand. Those following developments said Bahrain has ambitions of expanding these in the coming years.
Seapeak and Bapco Energies each hold 30% stakes in Bahrain LNG, with Gulf Investment Corp controlling 24% and Sam Gulf Investment 16%.
